Republicans on Allegheny County Council will announce an alternative property assessment plan today that they say will fix problems with the proposal by Democratic county Chief Executive Dan Onorato.

Although a news release from Republican Doug Price said the GOP plan will be "fairer and more equitable" than Onorato's proposal, it provided no details about the alternative plan. Price said Onorato's plan leaves "serious, lingering, unanswered questions" that the GOP proposal hopes to solve.

Last week, Onorato issued his second proposed set of new property assessment numbers for 2006. After the first set of numbers would have resulted in average assessment increases of about 19 percent for homeowners, Onorato developed a formula to create categories and cap increases at 4 percent.

When Common Pleas Court ruled the cap was illegal, Onorato developed a new set of assessments that he says used a different method of determining a property value. That plan calls for average increases of 5.8 percent. Some assessment experts have criticized Onorato's use of sales trends as a primary factor in determining new assessments.

The seven Republicans on the 15-member council will hold a news conference at noon in Conference Room 1 at the Allegheny County Courthouse.